[No surviving envelope]
Your letter of the 20th was very welcome – written, evidently, before you had received mine. I am sorry that you had a rough crossing, and that you were greeted with wet weather; and your sketch of the hotel, or paying-guest-establishment, sounds distinctly cheerless. Bedroom fires? Hot water bottles? Lumpy flock mattresses? The hungry flock looks up, and is not bed.1 Thin blankets and sheets with holes to put your toes through. But surely I thought, to-day is so balmy in London, for the first time, that Guernsey must be summerlike. LondonEnglandLondon;h1prepares for Silver Jubilee;c6 has sprouted rows of cheap tall battleaxes in the main thoroughfares, which are now been [sic] decorated with waterproof festoons, the prelude of a dismal jubilee.2 I had meant to ask you about those bananas; I imagined him offering you one (perhaps the one with the label on it) and you having the discretion to refuse, and him then consuming the whole bunch. But I am sorry he got off at Reading; he would have been a treat on that voyage. TheSt. Paul;a3 travels of St. Paul, eating bananas.
TheChristianitythe Church Year;d8arduous;b9 arduous Easter is over, or nearly over; itSt. Stephen's Church, Gloucester Roadvestry goings-on;a2 consisted for me largely in counting money, and sending acknowledgements. On Saturday I had in the vicar’s secretary, Miss Boiler; but I still have six or eight contributions to acknowledge. SirJohnson, Brig. Gen. Sir Henry;a2 Henry3 is getting too old to count money, and he will insist on helping, so there was a difference of four pounds in the notes.
Either you arrive at Waterloo at 6.55 or at Paddington at 8; but so far as I can make out, it is Waterloo at 6.55. That is a better time; we can leave your bags at Grenville Place and dine before the pictures.
TheChristianitythe Church Year;d8exhausting but refreshing;c2 Holy Week ceremonies were very well done; the Tenebrae service of Wednesday Thursday and Friday evening is especially beautiful, and the ‘watch’ of Friday morning always means a great deal to me. One is left in a state of physical exhaustion and spiritual refreshment.
Itravels, trips and plansTSE's 1935 tour of Scotland;b8;a3 hope to be also physically refreshed, by my Highland journey, before I see you. I don’t suppose I shall have the opportunity of writing again before you return. I hope I shall have a note to confirm the hour of your arrival, as I shall come to the station. But if I should miss you, remember to go straight to 9, Grenville Place and wait for me there. I do hope the rest of the holiday will be sunny and happy, and give you the strength to start the new season at Campden.
Thank you for a very sweet letter.
1.John Milton, Lycidas: ‘The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed.’ Cf. Ezekiel 34: 3.
2.Silver Jubilee of King George V, May 1935.
3.Sir Henry Johnson.
5.BrigJohnson, Brig. Gen. Sir Henry. Gen. Sir Henry Johnson, 4th Bt, CB (1855–1944), retired, lived at 60 Lexham Gardens, W.8. An associate at St Stephen’s Church, he helped with the church accounts.